The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MINE2026-050

Gunwinggu gubar

Australia · Western Arnhem Land stone country, Liverpool River to Oenpelli (Gunbalanya), Northern Territory

Function not recorded

Howitt’s engraving of the two crosshatched Kurnai bullroarers, Tundun and Rukut-Tundun: one broad and corded, the other narrow, with a separate cross-section at right.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Howitt's engraving of the two Kurnai bull-roarers Public domain · Image source

gubar; djabuluruwa

Source term: BULLROARER: gubar; djabuluruwa

Gunwinggu speakers had two names for the bullroarer: gubar and djabuluruwa. Theirs is the language of the western Arnhem Land stone country, from the Liverpool River to Oenpelli, whose rock shelters hold some of the richest painted galleries on earth. On the coasts to the north, the neighbouring languages called the instrument uwar or wubar.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer, called gubar or djabuluruwa.
Function
Not recorded.

Source

Arthur Capell, A Vocabulary of 600 Words in Forty North Australian Languages (Sydney, 1956), typescript, State Library of New South Wales, A 6929, p. 18

View the source

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.